Murmurs
by novitas
Summary: Bree thinks, sometimes, that she's making a mistake. Bree/Karl, Katherine/Bree, slight AU, oneshot.


Bree thinks, sometimes, that she's making a mistake. That this was the wrong choice for her. Karl is something new, different, alien; she thought she could get used to him, but now, she's not so sure. He's everywhere in the house now that he's decided to move in: the beer bottles on the coffee table, the dirty socks on the bedroom floor, the toilet seat he left up again, even though if she's told him once, she's told him a thousand times to put it back down when he uses it. But then again, there's also the warm, strong body pressed against her at night, his kiss when he comes in from the office, and the way he looks at her, so different from how he looked at Susan and Edie and everyone else.

But then there's the other reminder of her mistakes. There's Katherine, who has made her return, the prodigal wife-mother-sister, quieter after her hospital stay. Bree fears that she'll come to the kitchen one morning and Katherine will never show up, that she'll just vanish in the middle of the night. Whenever she sees Katherine's smile, so different from the way it was before--then it was sharper and darker, but now it's fainter, awkward, rusty from disuse--she wants to say, _Stay like that. Smile for me. Just don't go, don't leave me again._ Even though it was her who left Katherine first, who fired her, took away her key to the kitchen.

In the kitchen with Katherine, she finds herself imagining all the brutal things that Katherine could do if she relapses. Katherine never speaks about her breakdown, but sometimes she will; she calls it her 'bad time', her 'rainy days', and confessed to Bree once, in an undertone, that there were days at the hospital she couldn't get out of bed, that she spent crying, and nights when her dreams were so vivid and painful that she would wake to the taste of blood in her mouth from a bitten tongue or gnawed lips. This is terrifying to Bree. Without meaning to, she starts studying Katherine's face whenever she sees her, checking for torn skin, tooth marks; she looks for tear stains, reddened eyes, any sign at all.

In the kitchen, there are so many dangerous things. Sharp things, hot things, knives that can cut like silk. She never leaves Katherine alone in the kitchen, in case she does something to herself--cuts her wrists or her throat, stabs herself again, drowns herself in the sink, puts her head in the oven like Sylvia Plath. Karl doesn't understand why she's so worried. He says that Katherine is medicated now, that she's seeing a psychiatrist, and once says that if she does something they can just stick her back in the nuthouse where she belongs. That night, Bree makes him sleep on the couch. How dare he say those things? How dare he reduce Katherine to some sad cliche? Those are the times when Bree thinks that she's made a mistake.

Once, Bree was content to ignore what went on in the houses of her friends, so long as they didn't bring their drama or petty rivalries to her doorstep. But now, she wants to be at Katherine's house all the time; walking past it, she must always fight the urge to look in through the windows, to break the lock on the front door and let herself in. On a single block in Fairview, there is a different world in each house, but the only one Bree wants to explore is Katherine's, now that she's inhabiting it again. The woman she once thought was her twin is now a stranger. Even her hair seems a few shades different than Bree remembers it.

One night, Katherine calls her. It's very late, perhaps it's even the early morning, but at the sound of tears in her voice, Bree runs over, only a robe thrown on over her nightgown and no shoes, Karl, confused, calling after her. Katherine is in her room, curled up in the middle of the bed, her body shaking. There are all the signs, the bleeding lips, the swollen eyes. Bree, who's never been this impulsive, sits on the bed and pulls Katherine into her arms, feeling like she's gathering all the pieces of her together, her best friend shattered like a broken vase. "Oh, Katherine," she says, and puts her face into Katherine's hair, breathing in. There's a smell of sweat, a trace of Katherine's perfume, and the raw scent of her skin.

"I'm sorry," says Katherine, and her voice is cracked. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, Bree, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called you." Bree holds her tighter. When did Katherine become so frail? She's cold, too, even with the blanket, she's shivering. Bree takes off her robe and pulls her legs up onto the bed, taking the blanket off of Katherine and then wrapping it around them both. Katherine is almost in her lap now, still crying softly. "I was dreaming, Bree," whispers Katherine. "He said he loved me. He said it. But he left." Katherine gives a wrenching sob. "I didn't deserve him. I don't deserve anyone. I'm pathetic."

"No," says Bree. She takes Katherine's hands and suddenly kisses her fingers, her palms. She presses Katherine's hands against her face and tries not to cry herself, because one of them has to be strong, one of them can't break down like this. "No, Katherine. You deserve to be happy. You deserve love." Forgetting Karl, she kisses the inside of one of Katherine's wrists, delicately, just over the vein that she's feared Katherine would cut. Katherine is looking at her wide-eyed, teary, her mouth slightly open, her lips gnawed red, and she says, wonderingly, "Bree."

It's unclear who instigates the gesture, but they put their foreheads together, their hair equally red and messy, the moonlight coming in the window. There are no beer bottles, no dirty laundry, no nighttime arguments. Their lips touch briefly, Bree clutching Katherine's hands, tasting blood. And she knows, even in the aftermath, that it's not a mistake.


End file.
